


Down to the River to Pray

by ChokolatteJedi



Series: Music Big Bang [8]
Category: Saved! (2004)
Genre: Babies, Big Bang Challenge, Community: womenverse, Gen, Introspection, Lullabies, Music, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary contemplates a lullaby</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down to the River to Pray

**Author's Note:**

> For my Womenverse Big Bang with the theme, "music"

Mary sunk into the rocker with a sigh. Even though her mom had taken care of Jenna last night so that she could go out with Patrick, Mary felt just as tired as if she had stayed up the whole night with her daughter. It was hard, being an unwed mother, but her own mom was a huge help. Instead of sending her to Mercy House, her mom had brought Mary and Jenna home and had taken care of them. Mary had no real memories of a two parent house, but she thought that they were doing a decent job with little Jenna.

Of course, it didn't always feel like that when she had to wake up at three in the morning for a feeding, but one look into her baby's precious face was enough to keep her going for another day. Reaching out with one hand, Mary pushed play on the CD player next to the crib, slowly rocking to the beat. It took her two songs to realize that the voices she was hearing were familiar. In fact, one was her own!

_As I went down to the river to pray  
Studying about that good old way_

She even stopped rocking, she was so surprised, but a small, protesting noise from Jenna brought her to her senses. Resuming the movement, Mary cast around for the CD case. There, at the bottom of the stack of lullabies and Christian hymns was a purple, jewel tone case that she recognized. Pulling it out, she looked at the demo that the Christian Jewels had recorded last summer.

Had it only been last summer? When she had the perfect Christian boyfriend, and two best friends, and they were going to a recording studio that Hilary Faye had rented for the afternoon. At the time, it had seemed like an impossible dream. A fun way to spend the day, but not a real career move. Hilary Faye always had such grandiose ideas, and mostly Mary went along with them, but they had always seemed like unreachable dreams.

_O sisters let's go down,  
Let's go down, come on down_

Now, a year later, rocking her daughter to sleep in the middle of the night, the Christian Jewels seemed like a lifetime ago. Now her perfect Christian boyfriend had his own new boyfriend, as did she, and her two new best friends were nothing like her old ones.

The Jewels were naïve young girls, mindlessly repeating the religious dogma they had been fed for years. Now Mary found herself questioning more and more of that dogma. She still believe that Jesus loved her, but if her teachers had been wrong about gays and unwed mothers and Cassandra, then what else could they have been wrong about?

_Come on mothers let's go down,  
Down in the river to pray_

Mary found her gaze drawn to the three smiling faces on the case cover. Her mother must have kept this, must have pulled it out and played it for Jenna last night. Mary was no longer the girl on the cover, the girl singing softly in the background of the night. But maybe that was okay. And maybe it was okay that she liked the new Mary better.

_And who shall wear the robe and crown  
Good Lord, show me the way_

**Author's Note:**

> And the full lyrics for "[Down to the River to Pray](http://www.lullaby-link.com/down-to-the-river.html)"


End file.
